Guardians of the Galaxy 3

Guardians of the Galaxy 3

Things I liked:

• Rocket’s origin was well told, harrowing, and emotionally affecting.  

• A lot of nice character building moments; Mantis’ revelation of why she likes having Drax around particularly stood out.

• As Marvel villains go, High Evolutionary isn’t bad; His motivations make sense, his single-minded obsession w/ Rocket is understandable, and he’s not uber powerful to the point of ridiculousness. 

• I need more Cosmo.

• Chris Pratt is fine.  It’s nice to know that James Gunn felt Starlord’s insanity in Endgame was out of character.

• Who would have thought that Nebula would turn out to be one of the most interesting, likable characters in the trilogy?  Excellent growth from her first appearance.  Karen Gillan rocks.

• The action was fine.  The hallway slaughter scene was technically impressive.

• The ending of the film (and trilogy) is about as satisfying as I could have hoped for, considering I was never the biggest Guardians fan.  Everything gets neatly tied up.

Things I didn’t like:

• Rocket’s origin was way too brutal.  Animal cruelty’s no fun to watch.

• Adam Warlock served no purpose aside from kicking off the plot, and the manchild bit got old fast.  

• I’m not sure if the High Evolutionary’s true face was really necessary.

• James Gunn’s penchant for needle drops was neat in the first movie.  By the third, it borders on self-parody.

• Drax has gotten increasingly less amusing as he gets broader w/ his humor in each successive film.  

Not a bad ending to Gunn’s trilogy, but I’m not going to be watching it again anytime soon (but wouldn’t mind if it ran in the background.)

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Nice

Going through the rankings again, Far From Home has plummeted. I love the MJ stuff, but hate the Mysterio side of things.

1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Captain America: Civil War

3. Captain America: Winter Soldier

4. Spider-Man: No Way Home

5. Ant Man/Wasp

6. Avengers: Infinity War

7. Shang-Chi

8. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

9. Captain America: First Avenger

10. Avengers

11. Spider-Man: Homecoming

12. Avengers: Age of Ultron

13. Thor: Love and Thunder

14. Black Panther

15. Thor: Ragnarok

16. Iron Man 2

17. Captain Marvel

18. Black Widow

19. Ant-Man

20. Iron Man 1

21. Iron Man 3

22. Spider-Man: Far From Home

23. Guardians 3

24. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

25. Doctor Strange

26. Guardians 1

27. Guardians 2

28. Thor

29. Thor 2

30. Eternals

31. Hulk

32. Ant-Man/Wasp: Quantumania

New comics

New comics!  My comic buying schedule isn’t even close to weekly anymore, so things get bunched up a lot.  I think the lack of consistency is putting a damper on my enjoyment of the issues.  Something to think about.

Dark Knights of Steel 10

White Martian origins revealed as things get set up for the final fight.  This’ll probably be better on the re-read.

Fantastic Four 2

The comic shop finally got this in stock.  This is a spectacular issue.  Ryan North comes up with a great hook for a done-in-one issue, and really cements this as something to get on a monthly basis. 

Fantastic Four 6

North hasn’t quite been able to maintain his early momentum, but things are still interesting enough for me to stick with it for a few more issues.

Fables 158

I’m only still buying this because I’m pot committed with four issues remaining.  This is a total waste of everyone’s time.

Superman 3

Jamal Campbell’s art remains excellent and Joshua Williamson nails the character dynamics between Clark, Lois, and Luthor.  It’s too bad that the main plot with Parasite is completely uninteresting, and the next issue with Silver Banshee looks equally bland.  I’m giving this one more issue.

DCeased: War of the Undead Gods 8

A nice final moment between Jon and Damian, but this was otherwise the weakest of the DCeased arcs.  Erebos is a lame villain, the zombie virus really didn’t need an uber big bad behind it all.  

Love Everlasting 6

Still have no idea what’s going on, still enjoying the heck out of this.  It’s so different from anything else that’s out there.

Nightwing 103

Not bad, but I can’t wait for Tom Taylor to get Nightwing back to his street-level roots.  

Gotham City: Year One 6

This is perfectly average for a Tom King story.  It’s fine, but I’m most likely going to forget he ever wrote this in six months.

New comics

New comics!

It’s Jeff!

Hee, Marvel finally reprinted the digital Jeff shorts as a comic.  Jeff is super cute, Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru are perfect for telling his stories, and my daughter has already enjoyed reading this with me.  Can’t wait for the next collection.

Deep Cuts 1

Another comic I got due to an iFanboy recommendation.  A nice story about a kid learning music and life lessons during the birth of jazz.  I’ll be reading more.

John Wick: Chapter 4

John Wick 4

Hah, I’m reading my review for John Wick 3, and I think I can Mad Libs this thing:

The John Wick movies occupy an odd little spot in my brain.  I think that they’re excellent action movies with amazing action sequences.  The violence is visceral, Keanu Reeves is perfectly suited for the taciturn role, and the world building is stellar.

Yet I have zero desire to watch any of them a second time.  I really don’t understand it.  This third movie alone has multiple standout fight scenes, each one immediately recognizable with a simple label - The extended fight sequences at the Japanese Continental (including a sweet fight using nunchaku, an underutilized movie weapon), the Scott Adkins fight, the Arc de Triomphe fight among the cars, the John Wick: Hex camera angle fight in the house, and the super impressive stairway fight.  All of them showed me something I’d never seen before, and impressed me on top of that.  

So why is once enough?  I love watching action movies over and over again.  What’s the key component that’s missing from this series?  Is it because John Wick is coldly clinical in his killing?  No, Jason Bourne is just as ruthlessly efficient.  Is it the brutality?  Sure, I could have done without the ripping the knife through the hand scene, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the action.  Is John Wick too good at killing, making everything a boring foregone conclusion?  No, it’s not like John Wick doesn’t take his licks.  Do the fights lose their luster once the shock value runs its course?  No, these are legit strong sequences. 

Yeah, I don’t know.  These films hit all the right notes, but still leave me cold after the initial viewing.  

End Mad Libs.  Other notes:

Donnie Yen exudes classic John Woo Hong Kong vibes here, in the best way.

Keanu’s actions speak so much louder than the ten words he utters.  Acting in the finest “Whoa” sense.

This movie is way too long.  I love a good string of action set pieces (Mission: Impossible!  The Raid!), but I was exhausted by the end of Japan.

RIP Lance Reddick.

Ian McShane is always great.

I’ve really had enough of this universe.  No more films are necessary.

Regret Watching: No

Would Watch Again: Yes (But only in the background)

Would Buy on DVD: No

Rating: Nice

Movies

Tag

Surprisingly entertaining, I didn’t expect to be so invested in this paper-thin plot.  Jeremy Renner channels his action-hero roles to comedic effect, Isla Fisher steals her scenes, and Jake Johnson is a dead ringer for Oscar Isaac.  

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Nice

Movies

Creed 3

Not bad.  Jonathan Majors has this amazing ability to be completely off-putting.  He might be a little too good at it for his performance to be entirely enjoyable to watch.  I think that this series has diminishing returns; While not bad, this is the third best of the Creed movies.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Nice

Air

Matt Damon nails the speech he gives to Michael Jordan.  Dude can act.  The rest of it is pretty sweet as well.  Justin Bateman, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis…It’s a stacked cast that delivers the goods.  The story is engaging for something where the ending’s been known for forty years.  (Kind of like Miracle.)  The quintessential Dad movie.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Good

Made You Look

Documentary about a massive art scam.  Entertaining as heck, but the real lesson I get from this is to never buy art.  

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Pretty good

Prom Pact

A very by the numbers teenage high school rom com.  Which isn’t a bad thing if it’s done well.  This one comes in on the better side of the ledger, but what elevates it for me are three scenes: Mandy and Graham’s first kiss, Mandy’s salutatorian speech, and their last kiss.  Peyton Elizabeth Lee really sells the romance; there’s something about the way she moves her hands during the kisses that totally works for me.  And her nose crinkle when she says “good different.”  I may not watch the whole movie ever again, but I’ve already revisited those scenes multiple times.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Pretty good

New comics

New comic!

Batman: One Bad Day: Ra’s Al Ghul 1

Tom Taylor with a decent take on Ra’s Al Ghul, whom I’ve always been meh on as a Batman villain.  I nothing him.  Here though, he has a plan I can get behind: Kill the evil heads of corporations and put leaders in place who will affect environmentally friendly changes.  

What’s more, he succeeds.  On top of that, he kills Batman(!), resurrecting him only after his plans have been carried out.  This leads to another bare-chested sword fight between the two antagonists a la Neal Adams.

I’m not sad to have bought this, but I probably wouldn’t do it again.      

Einstein

Borrowed from the library, this is Jim Ottaviani’s latest.  As always, I love the effort, but I started zoning out by the end of the book.  Concept > execution.